The complex was deserted again the day I went back. The rain had frozen and turned to soft clumps of snow in only a matter of days since I left the tower, and so the work was halted completely, and the complex taped off. The worms were dead and it was dark inside, but I noticed, every night as I lingered around there, one single light that was left on and near it, the tape cut down for easy entrance. The light stayed on all night, and every day when the workers put up new tape it was cut down again, and so soon enough they gave up, probably figuring some poor homeless person needed shelter there, and no harm could come from that, and so every day the entrance would beckon to me. I lingered there; when no other place came to my mind to go I did not go inside the complex, but outside there seemed some safety, even in the cold, wind, and snow and rain that would beat upon me. But the light's burning was a beacon, a lighthouse—but separated by the waves of my emotions, morals, everything I had ever stood for, I would not cross to it.
Sometimes I saw him standing in the doorway, the entrance cut open for me, in the latest hours of the night, into the early morning, looking out. He would see me and I would see him, and for a long time we'd just stare at one another, through the rain and snow and wind until I slunk away to somewhere else—but I'd always return. As darkness fell when I came to that place to look inside the complex and into the warm light there was a sweater, a hat, a pair of snow gloves, and a thick black coat left for me, stacked and folded neatly, plain, no S, but I knew it was branding, telling. For the first night I did not wear it; the next day, when the rain froze to snow and my body shook with that cold, lonesomeness, I wore the sweater, which, even thick and insulating, didn't ward off the cold, but for the first night that was all I wore along with the new gloves. By the second, it was hailing, not violently, but with this freezing ice that made my blood completely chill. While we stared at one another, he watched me put on the coat over the sweater and then the hat over my ears. I pulled the hood over that and stared across at him for a while, but I still didn't feel well enough to cross. I slunk off, away from the heat that ultimately was there but feeling this new comfort given to me.
I had disconnected my locator, I think, probably immediately after leaving the tower, but then that time still remains quite a blur to me because my mind was somewhere else entirely, and in keeping with this I took no provisions; no food, clothing for anything like the weather offered, nothing to suggest I'd not ever again return to the tower, but I wouldn't, at least not for a long time. I didn't even take my motorcycle; I walked out of the tower and across the bridge and down to the antique store. I bought the carousel necklace with what little cash I was carrying in my pocket; I had left my credit card on my nightstand and of course had not thought to take it, so by the time I spent that dollar I only had about two dollars left. I probably would have been able to get food anywhere I went because everyone knew me and wanted to repay me for everything I did to save the city, but not once, in that whole span of five days away from the tower and not quite close to Slade, did I go into any restaurant to even try. It might have been a result of my pride—not wanting to show the city who had once bowed down to me what I had become, but honestly it was not that, because as egotistical as I know I can be, I realize that what kept me out was genuine uncaringness for my state of being; That was, if I lived or died, it seemed not to matter.
I bought the carousel necklace, and would sit in the park surviving demolition near the complex and would turn it around in my hands, playing with it as it seemed to be the only thing keeping me sane. I would watch kids from afar having snowball fights and laughing; young lovers skating on the city's only ice-rink, and my spirit could only sink. I tried to distance myself from it and sat in a quiet, unplowed area of the park, where the snow was knee deep. I could still hear laughter but did not see the sources, and lapsed into a cold, somehow comforting anonymity as I sat somewhat nestled in the snow, freezing, my legs cold and damp—but better than to hear that horrible music, and I didn't want to leave, and wouldn't until it got dark and it was honestly a little frightening, and dabbling too far in the loneliness that was taking violently my heart, because then I couldn't hear the music anymore. I went and found the light. I saw Slade leaning against a pillar inside the complex, looking out at the city lights. On the concrete railing near the subway, where I had taken to waiting and watching him, this time there was new boots and socks, a change of pants and underwear, and a pair of snow-pants. I didn't want to take it because he was watching, because he knew—knew how much I needed this, these things, this care, him—and he tilted his head slowly, regarding me with that one eye, unmistakably strained, before turning away and looking down at the ground. I took the pile of things and slunk away again, but it was very hard to leave that time.
By this point the nights in the snow were pretty comfortable, I suppose—not comfortable, preferable, or anything like that, but not hostile, either. With the new clothing, I was pretty bundled up, and warm enough that I managed to get a little sleep even lying in a little opening between the bridge and the railing, a small thing that became sort of a little cave for me, which was insulated enough even though snow had reached there but warmed by the bridge's light. I slept for a few hours and woke up feeling better than I had, groggy, and a little disoriented by the shock of coming out of sleep to the cold, but I was doing better. It was the first time I had slept in six days, I think—because even before I left the tower I hadn't really been sleeping, where circumstances weren't the same and there was no seriousness, emotions involved, just stupidly staying up all night for fun, but it had the same effects. And I think resting revived my brain to see crucial information that it had seemed to miss, or ignore, before this: I was starving. In terms of food, I had had only a very light breakfast the day Starfire came down with her cold, which had consisted of an apple and some yogurt. And that, then, had been over three days ago, without having consumed anything. My stomach growled helplessly; my mind moaned for nourishment and my judgment cared little for anything else but satisfying bodily needs. I found myself at the complex again, in the early afternoon, when it was snowing lightly. I probably expected him to leave a hot dinner for me—at least it was what I had hoped, but in truth I wasn't too far off.
When I got there, however, he wasn't there, and the concrete railing was empty. I slunk down on the bench beneath the railing and nodded off for an unknown period of time until I was woken by a presence as it sat itself next to me on the small bench.
"Unusual time. So has your choice been made, my little one?"
I looked over at him, sitting there next to me on the bench in that freezing weather. He looked probably as exhausted as I did, and he was making no attempt to hide it, and that in itself was obvious too. I had never seen him so passive, but then, so could be said for myself and actually in reality it so little mattered it wasn't even worth elaborating upon at that point, because I think similarly we were both somewhere that was unpleasant and tiring, and I think that that neutrality had made caring an unnecessary and otherwise only tiring feat (and to be honest if I even cared why he was tired, I wouldn't have voiced it). He wore everything he usually did, the soldier swagger with the gleaming metal, and seemed unaffected by the cold, at least, at face value, but if he was beneath the suit he didn't show it. He had another black garment folded neatly in his lap.
I shook my head. I did not move, and did not speak—my face did not contort and I did not jump into fighting stance. I sat still next to him and just shook my head. During that afternoon, the streets were mostly empty; a squirrel or rat or something would scamper by detachedly, and the wind would make the wood buildings moan and the trees sway in their whisper, and would make the snow falling sing with its chill, but the place was devoid of people. It was not lost upon me, that there was no one, and I was so alone—but I shook my head.
It still seemed all I could do.
And he didn't seem to expect any deviating response from that. He unfolded the garment, which turned out to be a long black cape, and said, simply, almost immediately, "Well, then you will at least wear this, my little one." He stood up and circled the bench until he was behind were I sat, and he slipped the cape between my back and the concrete surface of the bench and pulled the clips around my neck and fixed them snugly, comfortably, but I didn't protest the action. Staring at the office building across from the complex, which was new and shining, I watched windows fill with steam and snowflakes and water drops dot the glass and did not look at him when he came back around and stood in front of me and fixed my cape in the front so that it was closed to keep the heat in. I imaged myself inside one of those buildings; I imagined having a small office sandwiched between some white-collars just like me as I worked to support my family at home, filing papers and typing on a computer all day and night, but I'd be content.
In the end, the bad guy didn't care about those white-collars. They'd blow up your office building but when they had a stupid young kid to go after instead, who gave a shit?
"You've gotten so thin."
I had barely noticed that one of his gloved hands was still lingering on my chest where he had secured the cape around me. Even through all the thick layers of clothing he had given me, he could still probably feel the ribs I knew jutted out. Because it wasn't as if I had been the biggest eater in the first place, especially not since Paris and getting back from fighting the Brotherhood of Evil, when somehow something so important became almost irrelevant. At most in a day, I might have a piece of fruit for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and sometimes nothing for dinner. If I had anything, it typically consisted of whatever was most readily available, and sometimes that meant a bag of chips or a candy bar. I hadn't been much of a health nut because weight had never taken to me, no matter how much I ate, and neither did it slow down my training—but then I never ate much, anyway. I had, a lot, often, even, before Terra and Slade's ménaging, but with increasing outward looking at the needs of others and not so much self-obsession with a certain enemy, I had stopped trying. I only ate when I could not function, and, a rare occurrence, it became frightening to feel the hollows in my stomach as I did.
"God," he said, softly, staring at my chest. "You were already so skinny as it was, Robin, and now look at you—you're as thin as a stick. When was the last time you ate?"
I still did not look at him when I spoke: "I don't know, Slade."
I saw out of the corner of my eye that he was still eyeing me warily, taking in the thin but unmistakable lines of jutting ribs and bone, the shrunken skin even beneath the layers I wore. The thickness of those things he'd given me could not conceal what he had correctly phrased, a paper, or stick like figure that looked as if it would collapse with a slight breeze. He ran his fingers over my chest and I could feel my ribs groan with this feeling; like being played like a xylophone, the ribs clacked and cried in harmonious rising tones. My stomach contorted in hunger, and it was probably then and there that I felt, for the first time, tears coming on; since leaving the tower, sleeping alone, avoiding that music—now I felt the urge to cry as I now looked down at his hand running against the length of my ribs. Maybe it was that I saw what I had become for the first time, in looking; maybe it was that I saw that he was part of it too, or maybe it was both, or neither. Maybe I was realizing my situation, truly and without lying, for the first time, and maybe I was just beginning to comprehend that. Maybe it was the first time that that I realized what had happened to me, remembered Starfire, and Wally, and took in that effect in its completeness. I saw what they had done to me; I saw his hands and saw what he wanted to do for me. A single tear drop slid out of my eye and beneath my mask, and splashed upon my knee. Another followed until I was weeping, and I watched them fall onto my snow-pants and gather in unchanging dew drops on my body, never ceasing.
He sat down, and suddenly I found him pulling me into his arms and holding me. To think back on that moment is odd, and I don't forget that moment easily. It's strange, of course, to think that an enemy like Slade could do something like that—let alone have, in his spirit, the capacity of kindness for that such action. It's also odd to think that, again, neither of us seemed to care what was being done anymore. He didn't care about holding me—and if he thought that showing me this kindness was an act of weakness he'd never looked stronger when he did it, and in turn I didn't care, either—didn't squirm or writhe to get out of that grip. It seemed for a moment that neither of us knew each other; that we were two citizens in the city just living and coexisting, like I had been in a car crash and a bystander, Slade, had been there to hold me until the ambulance came, keep me from going into shock and dying. To be honest it didn't feel like this was the same guy who had tried to kill me; this was not the person who had planted probes in my friends or caused me to dabble in evil like I did. He was a virgin to me, unchanging and anonymous, a passing but lasting presence that was not ignored; he wouldn't stay long after the car crash but when I woke up in the hospital I'd remember that person always, wouldn't know his name but thank him unendingly. This was Slade now. We both seemed to believe or pretend this, coming into this strange new light and out of the darkness of our past. In the light falling snow we were reborn; we were new but we did not forget our past lives, clung to them without effect. Slade held me and I laid in his arms, unmoving, but I still thought, tiredly, trying, I can't. Passing but lasting, Starfire's presence in my life too did not dispel so easily. A purgatory like place, I laid there in Slade's arms as he ran his fingers through my hair but thought about Starfire. It was not about Slade—wouldn't be anymore. It was about her. He was not the problem, but I thought—I can't.
He held me close, and I laid there, listening to the city winter birds in the far off park chirping quietly and benignly. He was warm, and it almost didn't feel like it was snowing around us as it was, increased now by falling darkness of late afternoon; the metal of his suit, his strong arms, served to insulate me thoroughly, and it was not lost upon me that I was the warmest I had been in the time since leaving the tower—untouched by the cold and freezing rain and elements around us. I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart beat beneath the metal, clearly heard, a steady and comforting beat that lulled my tears back into my eyes and quieted my shaking until I was still and calm. I felt his fingers running gently through my hair and was soothed by that; the hands that had once dealt painful and undying blows to my skin now caressed the tresses like they had the fragility of a newborn bird. He shushed me until my tears had stopped and then he did not speak, but he didn't need to. I laid in his arms and listened to the heart beat, the gentle thumping that drew me calm, and felt alive with this other who was similarly alive. I felt grounded for the first time since leaving the tower, felt purposeful, and the need to leave fled as fast as I would have had he not been there to hold me and dry my tears. I realized why I came and stared at him every night; the human side to him, which I had almost known when he'd made me his apprentice, was there and real and beckoning. I wanted to go to him, and wanted to hear his heartbeat and know that there was still something warm in the world. I wanted to know there was something real and manifested, something new I could be a part of. I wanted human companionship and wanted comfort my friends had not given me, a fatherly touch, where I didn't have to guess, and things were taken care of—and had he not found me on the bench I might have killed myself, if from fatigue and altered judgment most simply as it would be best to believe, as soon as that night. My enemy had saved my life again. I thanked him for that.
I nodded off briefly while laying in his arms after I stopped weeping. I was soothed and warm and even suffice to say comfortable—and again, without consideration to the specific circumstances, it seemed not to matter what either of us did in this time and place and I gave little thought even after I woke up from my brief nap in hunger pains. At the most basic of levels it would neither have mattered to me if he had been the one to kill me in my sleep—if he who had grounded me didn't want to keep me that way, then better off that I die at least thinking I was warm. I was not worried for my safety and did not think to keep myself awake, to move or squirm or protest, though I little knew when I fell asleep anyway. It seemed either way not to matter—because either way I had a primordial understanding that I would be fine, that, if he was the one to enact whatever, I would be okay. He became like God to me instantly—and I like a blind follower, who believed that whatever his plans were were solid and true and with undying beauty in the end. But I was not so blind because in retrospect if I were to pick anyone to be this so called god then Slade was undoubtedly the most fitting; he who knew me, who was stern but caring, ultimately as I saw him laying in his arms, who wanted a son as I needed a father. And I was okay, as I had always believed I would be: even reaching to the earliest battles with Slade, my life never seemed to loom or deter over the line of death and living. It's strange to say but in a lot of ways I think I trusted him more than I could ever understand, and he knew that, too. How reassuring, I have to say it is, to fall asleep with someone like that—to be there and to be weak and sad and to wake up the same way you were, but better, protected by this so called enemy. I was a fool to think I could avoid him—and I was a fool to still try, even then.
When I woke it was night, and there was a streetlight on over us that did not have the same effect as the light now shining reassuringly in the complex, where I wanted and should have been, where I protested but longed, but Slade had not moved me. It was still snowing though it was considerably falling lighter, more harmlessly, in soft, fluffy clumps. Snow fell on the metal of his suit but I was still dry and very warm, actually, very comfortable nestled against him. I was woozy and my head felt heavy, and even after waking initially I laid there for a while against him, half asleep, listening to the sounds of the city echoing far away from our little dwelling, our own created world. He stroked my hair silently and I nodded in and out for a little while until I was unable to deny my stomach any longer and moaned in wakefulness, hungrier than ever, feeling an basic emptiness, one that was painful but dulled (which was arguably worse than a merely painful sensation as now it suggested that I was perhaps dying of hunger) and I felt the need to vomit even though there was nothing in my stomach for that function. I groaned again, and looked up at him, tiredly, struggling to keep my eyes open, but somehow suddenly feeling that if I didn't I wouldn't wake up again—and wherever this new liveliness, the desire to remain, came from, I do not know. I looked up at him quietly and said nothing. His own eye found mine and looked down upon me as he continued to stroke my hair. He was noticeably tired but I could see, instantly, that he would not fall asleep as I had—a protector mentality that was not lost on me. His eye squinted a little bit, indicating his sensing of what I felt. He shifted me closer, drawing me in tightly so that even if I had had the strength to move I probably couldn't have.
"Have you made your choice yet, little one?"
I stared up at him, and it took me a minute to formulate the two words I said, that bound me, that pained me, what made it impossible to escape from my previous relations to Starfire. But even in that dreary night in his arms, warm and comfortable, protected and cared for, it seemed all I could do for anything I had once been. "I can't," I said softly, and blinked at him slowly, receiving for what was perhaps the first time a sigh rising from the mask, and watching the eye close in what seemed to be brief defeat. I felt his arms tighten around me, and I found myself maybe unconsciously curling closer to him for warmth, but I repeated, the words seeming detached, not my own—I can't. I can't.
It was a minute before he spoke again. "Alright, Robin." He sounded tired and wary, of a different type but arguably as tired as I. He was tired but he didn't stop stroking my hair, and he didn't loosen his arms. That, either, was not lost to me. "Alright. I will let you go back out there tonight, because you will come back of your own free will, but I am not going to let you leave now without eating. You will die if you do, do you understand me?"
I nodded, silently.
"Will you let me get you dinner?"
I nodded again, slowly.
He closed his eye, this time, as if in praying thankfulness. He sighed, in that same fashion. "Alright. My god, that's my good boy. You're worrying the hell out of me." And then fluidly he stood, without faltering even slightly, and hoisted me in his arms and laid me over his shoulder. I groaned a little, but didn't protest. I felt secure in his arms and knew he wouldn't drop me; didn't care where he took me, because I knew it wouldn't be bad either way—knew he knew what was best for me and how to take care of me. I lay my head against the crook of his neck and closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of the night contrasted comfortingly with the heartbeat I could sense in his spirit, maybe hallucinated, and his breathing, which was calm and soft. He walked easily and the slight bounce in his walking seemed to lull me quietly into a calm that is indescribable, implacable, to someone like Slade, unimagined—and therefore all the more comforting.
"My god, you're light," he said softly, and ran his hand down my back soothingly, bouncing me lightly as he walked. "We'll have to fix that, won't we? I'm going to get you a nice big steak and we'll see if we can fatten you up a little bit, hm?"
With my eyes closed, I felt myself blush ever so slightly—a little indication of a returning self, my spirit, and something brighter on the horizon. I mumbled an "okay" and nodded off again, as he carried me to wherever to do what he had promised.
He took me to what I realized very quickly was an underground villain hangout—where the bad guys came to ménage and eat and have drinks and speak of their evil plans. We had gone down what reminded me of a secret tunnel to get to this so called "speakeasy" and though I was barely awake I remember it pretty well. It was a sleek metal tunnel that ran beneath the city, reminding me a lot of hideouts in Gotham that were on police radar, always watched, for whatever activity might be inside. A man in a nice black suit opened the door and welcomed Slade in, though he cautioned him to keep on eye on his "guest," which would be me, because the majority of the people who hung out there hated my guts and would have done anything to put an end to me, and everyone knew it too. Slade had the butler take us in through the back way because he did not want any trouble, and into a private room that probably belonged to him. He sent this butler back to get me the meal he had scribbled down on one of those informal restaurant cards, and some cocktails for himself, powerful little shots that were popular in these types of bars, and told him to do it quickly or he'd have the butler killed. He also told the butler that if anything made its way into my food, for any reason, he would not only have him killed but his family and friends as well. In all seriousness, the guy looked like he was about to piss himself and quickly agreed to the terms and conditions: he had everything at the table within five minutes, reportedly giving away a steak for another patron so that I could have it. On the plate also, there was those breakfast potatoes that I really liked with steak, and a chocolate milkshake on the side. When I'd been more unhealthy, before the Brotherhood of evil, I would often eat meals like this any chance I got, because steak and potatoes was my favorite, keeping my metabolism up for when I trained rigorously. Chocolate milkshakes were also my favorite, and I liked them for that same reason.
"How did you know," I asked, but it came out as more of an uninterested statement as I watched him cutting the steak with a carving type knife and fork. The steak itself was medium rare, just how I liked it. I watched him cut it into very manageable squares with a certain practiced care that was almost a phenomenon, seemingly, to witness.
"Well—you remember Terra, of course. Those cameras she put up…"
"Oh."
"Yes," he said, and pushed the plate in my direction. "Now eat that slowly. You're not leaving until you eat all of it but there's no need to rush. Just relax."
"Okay," I said softly, though eating the steak, even cut into small pieces like he had for me, seemed like a real arduous task. I picked up the fork and jabbed one of the pieces of steak, and brought it to my mouth. It was soft and almost melted in my mouth. Really good. Had I cared more about the present time, had I not been thinking about Starfire and Wally and everything else, I might have been really impressed. The milkshake was also very good and also made me feel very good, and the whole meal—well it was so pleasing and so satisfying, and I was so hungry that I barely noticed him watching me with that one speculative eye. I was probably eating like an animal and felt myself getting crumbs and butter and stains and the like on myself, dirtying my face, but if it bothered him he didn't show it. He seemed very pleased and his shot glasses went untouched, disregarded, as he watched me—and had I looked really into that one eye I would have noticed the adoring, fatherly quality had come back, and even as he scolded me to slow down I could see his eye shining and could hear him purring just very slightly.
"Slow down, my little one," he told me as I shoved more of it in my mouth, ravaging the plate like a madman. "I know you're hungry but you'll get sick if you eat that too fast." And when I wouldn't slow down to the way he liked, because I had really gotten going by tasting the food and it was too hard to resist, he gently tugged the plate away and pushed the milkshake in my direction, as more of a chaser than anything, so that I would take a break from this food and not get sick.
I didn't protest—it was what he wanted—and I sipped the milkshake even though I wanted more steak pretty badly. I looked up at him and noticed that now, without me eating like I had, his gaze had somehow slipped sadly back into that tired, deplored presence, not so avidly but wary in the idea of where I was and what I would do and how what I wanted to do then, how I protested, would not include being with him. He threw one of the shots back with intense skill between the slots of his mask and seemed not to miss a drop, slamming the glass down on the table as bar-hoppers triumphantly do, but his eye was sad and drooped—the sad drunk, as it seemed, but he didn't get drunk. Slade did not get drunk.
"Won't you please come home with me, my little one? You've just been worrying me to death, understand? I can't sleep."
I took my mouth off of the straw and stared at him, my eyes tired and wary and matching his. I didn't know what to say. "…You can't sleep?"
"No, I can't, if you want to know the truth," he said, and threw another shot back. "I told you I haven't given up on you and every night you're out there…—why are you protesting this? You know you'll come back to me, don't you, Robin? You're a smart boy—you know you'll come back to me, don't you?"
The word slipped out before I could stop it, but it was true. "Yes."
"So then why are you doing this?" I could hear the conviction in his voice and it was apparent to me immediately how undying above everything else it was—telling me immediately and without hesitation that no matter what he would not give up on me, as it seemed now. He didn't even sound like Slade anymore—Slade, with Terra, wouldn't say he couldn't sleep. Slade, with Terra, wouldn't sleep. Slade wouldn't have cared, but then, he would, and so would I, and so now we were again taking our past selves and looking into them and taking what we wanted from them to keep but we weren't caring what new development we made, what we showed, how we threw it forth. He didn't sound like Slade—Slade, who had never seemed to care about anything but himself, seemed torn apart by my absence, worried to death like a father for a sickly son. Slade didn't get drunk, but he did not drink. I watched him now and saw the bystander with the kind and concerned spiritual mentality and felt that he sensed the same in me, and for the first time I realized how he felt and—I did not want to see him like this, do this to him. This was not who I was, but it was, at the same time. Passing and lingering, all at once.
"I'm sorry, Slade," I said softly, and looked down into the frosty milkshake glass on the table before me. I didn't touch it, feeling ashamed, unworthy.
"Why?" he said. He sat down the shot that he had been pulling to his mask to throw back, and the eye fixed upon me, drooped in sadness of what I realized was my fatigue.
"I can't come with you—n-not now, okay? I just—you were right, okay?" I was crying again; tears started quickly and fell in rapids. "You were right, okay, but I can't—s-she was everything to me and s-she—I d-don't…"
He stood up and came over to me, and sat down in the chair next to mine. He took the napkin up from the table and dried my eyes gently, with what I can only describe as with an almost loving touch, until I was quiet again and I had stopped. I didn't resist as he cleaned my face and could just barely turn him down when he asked me, softly,
"Will you take your mask off, please?"
I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I c-can't—not n-now, okay?" And I continued to cry, and he continued to clean my eyes with that care and lovingness and did not ask me to remove it again that night. He heard me saw "not now" and felt better, and I saw it, knew it, felt it. It seemed the little I could give him and owed him, and detached from the old Robin, seeming not to belong to me—but being mine anyway, and my conviction. The truth was, I'll tell you now—I cared. That's just it.
When I had stopped crying I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was looking back at me and the expression of fatigue was unchanging. I heard him sigh within the mask, and for a while he said nothing—just sitting there, looking at me, thinking, observing, speculative, tired.
"I h-have to talk to her," I said softly, and his eyes dimmed and he sighed. He got up and walked back over to his side of the table, and briefly regarded the shots before passively swiping them off the table with a gentle but uncaring hand. I watched the sturdy shot glasses, build to withstand those triumphant bar-hoppers or Slade, roll unharmed across the floor and stop at the edge of the pool of their contents beneath them. He watched them too, his eye following their paths in the same objective manner, and said, as he did,
"I don't want you to—she'll lie to you—but if you think that's best then you should. But—goddammit, will you please come back to me, Robin? Please?"
I looked up from the floor where I watched the shot glass. "Yes," I said softly, and meant it.
I finished the meal and stood up, feeling tired but a lot better since I had eaten. He walked me out out the back way and when we reached the street I turned to walk to Titans tower, but he pulled me back and made sure my coats were zipped up and my cape secured. I started off again, slowly, and he hesitated, but then called me back again, a second time.
"Come here, Robin," he said, and I turned and made my way to him without hesitating in though, care for what might happen.
I came to him and he put his arms around me, and hugged me. I could hear his voice falter in his wary, tired pain, breaking on the verge of truthful tears, though he didn't cry, because Slade didn't cry, as he said, holding me tightly and protectively, and as I felt not wanting to let me go, ever, "I can help you, Robin—please stay. Please."
"I'll come back," I said. My arms somehow found their way around his body. I embraced him. I don't know why or how I did it, but I did, and it was what he needed to let go, finally, and release me back into the world after what seemed like a century of lingering in his arms again and thinking about Starfire.
"Keep that coat zipped," he said tiredly.
"I will."
"That's my boy," he said, and watched me walk off back into the cold night—
But this time warmer.